


A Brief Visit to Haddonfield

by chilly_flame



Series: Halloween Shorts [1]
Category: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Halloween
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-09-23
Packaged: 2019-01-04 06:38:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12163503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chilly_flame/pseuds/chilly_flame
Summary: Bad dreams and scary movies.





	A Brief Visit to Haddonfield

**Author's Note:**

> These were originally published in 2011, part of a Quick and Dirty Halloween fic-a-thon. I caught winter156's recent zombie fic and the lightbulb went off--for some reason I am pretty sure I never imported these shorts to ao3. So, that's fixed.

A bloodcurdling scream echoed through the townhouse.  
   
Andy shot straight up in bed; the shock of it electrified her body. She looked over at Miranda, whose hand found her wrist.  
   
“I’d guess it’s Caroline,” Miranda said.  
   
“I’ll go,” Andy replied.  
   
“I’ll check in on Cassidy,” Miranda added, and they both rolled out of their respective sides of the bed.  
   
Andy grabbed her robe off the chair. She ran through the hall much faster than she would normally, and when she silently opened Caroline’s door, she saw the young girl sitting up in bed. “Hey,” Andy said softly, hoping not to scare the girl further.  
   
There was a sob, followed by, “Sorry, I’m sorry.”  
   
“Hey, it’s okay, honey,” Andy said softly, coming closer to the bed and taking a seat near the girl. “What happened?”  
   
“I had a bad dream,” Caroline whimpered.  
   
“Oh, come here, sweetie,” Andy said, and Caroline fell into her arms. Andy stroked her head with one hand and rocked her gently. “I’m right here. Your mom and I are here. We wouldn’t let anything bad happen to you,” she soothed. Caroline didn’t say anything; she only clawed at Andy’s back, while tears seeped through Andy’s robe. A few minutes went by as Andy just waited until the girl calmed. Finally she asked, “Can you tell me what your dream was about?”  
   
Caroline’s hands flexed against Andy’s back, but she stayed snuggled in her arms. “A bad man broke into the house. He was going to kill me, and you and Mom were already dead I think, but I’m not sure. And Cassidy was with me and he just kept coming at me and screaming and I was so scared, Andy, I was so scared.”  
   
Andy’s eyes closed, and she once more regretted that the twins had clandestinely watched the first forty minutes of the movie “Halloween” on cable. They were still only thirteen, and Andy had put her foot down with Miranda, who was far more lax about these things, that no R-rated movies were to be watched during the Halloween season. Miranda was intensely protective of her girls in almost every other way, but when it came to movies, she often allowed the twins to see whatever they wanted. Andy figured that was just because Miranda had no idea what modern horror movies were really like, considering the last one she’d watched was probably “Nosferatu” or “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” when she was in graduate school.  
   
But Andy argued with her repeatedly, having been personally scarred for life by a few of the scarier gore-fests of the 90s, and she eventually won out. No horror DVDs were rented, no matter how much the girls pleaded, but there was nothing either Andy or Miranda could do about cable. Even though the tv version of “Halloween” had been cleaned up of blood and nudity (which admittedly, there wasn’t very much of,) it was a terrifying movie from the start.  
   
When Andy caught the twins watching the movie on a basic cable channel earlier that afternoon, she didn’t get upset. She didn’t yell, and she didn’t complain. Instead, she walked into the family room and asked, “What are you watching?” as if she had no idea what it was.  
   
Cassidy cringed, and changed the channel. “Nothing. Just flipping around.”  
   
“Oh. Go back, I think I’ve seen that before.”  
   
“Um, I’m not sure—“  
   
“No, it’s okay. I’m curious.”  
   
Cassidy did so, somehow compelled by Andy’s calm request. And there was Michael Myers, standing in the corner of a dark house, about to kill a bunch of people.  
   
“That looks like ‘Halloween,’” she’d said off-handedly.  
   
Cassidy had turned the channel again. “I guess. I think House Hunters International is on. I’ll find it.”  
   
And that was all that had been said.  
   
The current scenario, the one in which one or both of the girls woke up screaming because of fears of the boogeyman, was what she had been hoping to avoid. There were enough real-life horrors for Andy and Miranda to worry about protecting the kids from; movie nightmares that stirred up primal fear weren’t on either of their lists. But the Pandora’s Box was open now, and Michael Myers’s crazy spray-painted Captain Kirk mask was now on Caroline’s list of “things that scared her shitless.”  
   
“No one else is here,” she told Caroline, still stroking her hair. “The doors are locked and the alarm’s set. We’d hear it go off if anyone came in, and we have that special place for us to go if that ever happens, remember?” It wasn’t a full on panic room, but there was a hidden panel behind a wall-hanging off the hallway. It shielded the entrance to a room just big enough for the four of them to wait out an emergency, complete with internet, a land line, plus food and water for 48 hours. Andy was a big fan of the room, and she and Miranda had enjoyed a quickie or two in there when the spirit moved them. Never had they used it for anything other than sex, and Andy hoped it stayed that way.  
   
“I know,” Caroline said. “I couldn’t get into the room. It was too late.”  
   
Andy kissed her forehead. “It was just a dream, honey. I know you’re scared, but it was only a dream.”  
   
“I know.” She shivered in Andy’s arms. “Why do you think it’s hard to let go of being scared even though you’re awake?”  
   
Andy sighed. “I wish I knew the answer to that. It happens to me too, when I have a bad dream.”  
   
Caroline wiped her cheeks and looked up at Andy in the dim glow of the hall light. “What do you do when it happens to you?”  
   
Andy grinned. “Now? I just hug your mom. Being close to her helps me feel better.”  
   
“What about when you were little?”  
   
Thinking back, Andy told her, “My mom would hold me till I fell asleep. Sometimes she’d stay with me all night.”  
   
Caroline’s face stilled, and Andy saw the request in her eyes before it came.  
   
“You want me to stay with you for a while?” Andy asked.  
   
With a nod, Caroline seemed to shrink into herself.  
   
“Give me just a minute, okay?” Andy asked.  
   
“Okay.”  
   
Back her own bedroom, Andy found Miranda in under the covers, awake but groggy. “I’m going to stay with Caroline. She’s scared.”  
   
Miranda inhaled deeply and released a huge sigh. “I don’t say this often, and I don’t plan to either, but in this case, you were right.”  
   
Andy shrugged. “Wish I wasn’t. Sleep good.” She knelt on the side of the bed and kissed Miranda. “Wake me when you get up, okay?”  
   
“I will.” Miranda touched her cheek. “I love you.”  
   
Andy blinked. Miranda didn’t usually offer up those words without Andy saying them first. It made for a nice change. “Love you too.”  
   
Moments later she was sliding under the sheet with Caroline, leaving her robe at the foot of the bed. “I brought you a glass of water,” Andy said, handing it over to Caroline. The girl took it and gulped a few sips before handing it back. Andy left it on the side table and turned off the lamp, but she’d left the hall light on so the room wasn’t pitch black. “How’s that?”  
   
“Okay,” Caroline replied. Once Andy got comfortable, Caroline wriggled into her arms, dropping her warm head on Andy’s shoulder.  
   
“You’re safe, honey,” Andy whispered. “I’m right here.”  
   
Caroline didn’t say anything, but she nodded.  
   
Andy waited for a while, hoping Caroline would fall asleep first, and amazingly, she did. Andy listened to the even, deep breaths with a great deal of pleasure, and closed her eyes.

~end


End file.
